


Flight Delays

by princessbekker



Series: Family!Verse [3]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, background cabenson and camaro, basically Olivia has to pee but she has anxiety about public bathrooms, but a pretty gen fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 11:56:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18872737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessbekker/pseuds/princessbekker
Summary: Olivia's still anxious about some things (Can be read as stand-alone)





	Flight Delays

Some things are sticky. No matter how many years go by, how hard Olivia tries to work past her issues, there are those that stay firmly rooted under her skin like splinters. For the most part, she’s gotten through most of them, but this hasn’t ever left her. The feeling of being in a public bathroom. The fear she feels, the guilt, it never eases. Every single time she goes, she gets this uncomfortable thought in her head. All the women in there think she’s perving on them. Which she isn’t, obviously, and they aren’t thinking, obviously, but she still has the flash of it blaring like a fire alarm every time she walks into a public restroom. 

Now, Olivia avoids using the bathroom in public at all costs. She’d rather hold it all day, even though it’s definitely not good for her, than walk into one and be filled with that disgusting, pervasive fear that everyone thinks she’s just like the kind of men she arrests for putting cameras in women’s restrooms so he has a private show whenever he wants one. After all these years of dealing with it, one would think she’d have gotten over it. But no, no, it still follows her.

After a three hour delay on their flight to Italy with Nick, Sonny and Zara, Olivia is starting to lose it. She’d rather use the plane bathroom than a public one because there’s no one else in there to be anxious about, but that requires her to get on the plane. For the past hour and a half, she’s been bouncing her leg rapidly in the crowded terminal. Really, she’s been trying to keep it all under control, but their flight keeps getting delayed and at the thought of being forced to take care of things here, in the busy and undoubtedly full restrooms, her chest goes tight and tears sting at her eyes. 

Alex looks over at her when Olivia starts tapping her fingers against the seat of the chair as well. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, just…” She lets her eyes shut. “The delay is stressing me out, is all.”

The look her wife gives her is too knowing, and so is the hand that takes one of her own and squeezes. “I can go with you. Noah’s safe with the others, and we can put our backpacks down so no one takes our seats.”

Olivia shakes her head. In the next ten or fifteen minutes, they’ll be on the plane, and then it’s only a good twenty more minutes before they can move about the cabin, and then she can go. That’s just thirty five minutes right? She can wait thirty five more minutes, no problem. It shouldn’t be a big deal.

But people are looking at her now, and not like she’s the intimidating lieutenant who doesn’t take anyone’s shit. They’re looking at her like she’s the crazy woman crying over brands of toilet paper at three in the afternoon on a Wednesday. Maybe she is a little crazy. Normal people don’t get this worked up about going to the bathroom in an airport. Certainly not over issues that only exist in her head. She just has to keep calm, she tells herself, as she presses the heels of her hands into her shaking legs. Olivia isn’t a child anymore, she can control herself. 

“Attention passengers. Flight 7016 has been delayed until 9:27 pm. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Olivia grits her teeth and drops her head down against her knees. Another hour. One hour, then they’re on the plane in fifteen minutes, then twenty minutes until she can use the bathroom there. It’s not too long. She can do this, because she’s in control of herself, and she doesn’t need to subject herself to the public restroom right now. Everything is fine.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a small hand hitting against the side of her arm. She lifts her head to look at Noah. Her little boy, happy, and even though he’s getting restless he’s so excited to go on this family trip and get to meet Sonny’s family. They’ll all adore him, and Sonny’s grandmother will load him up on home cooked desserts, and one of his cousins will teach Noah a swear word even though five year olds don’t need to know.

“Okay, mom?”

“I’m okay,” Olivia lies.

Nick looks up from the Spanish book he’s quietly reading to Zara, helping her translate because the girl has thrown herself head first into learning the language. He gives her this look, one that says he knows what the problem is and thinks Olivia should take up on Alex’s offer to go with her and keep her calm. But he won’t say so. He doesn’t need to, and it would be an awkward thing for him to say to her in public, loud enough for her to hear over the space between their rows of opposing seats.

Just then, Sonny leans over to whisper something to Nick, and gets up to walk somewhere. Probably the bathroom, because he’s a normal fucking person and not petrified by the thought of doing so in public. Olivia goes back to folding up to ease the pressure and try to take her mind off it. At some point, Alex starts rubbing her back to help her ground herself.

A few minutes later, Sonny comes back. She knows because he kneels in front of her and puts a hand on her shoulder, waiting for her to look up. 

“Hey, Liv, come with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can, c’mon. It’s gonna be okay.”

She doesn’t want to, but she also trusts Sonny, that he wouldn’t ask anything of her right now if it wasn’t important. Carefully, Olivia gets to her feet, and Sonny wraps an arm around her to help her walk. “It’s not far, I promise.” She just nods.

It feels like forever, but it’s really only about a few minutes before Sonny stops walking and Olivia looks up from her shoes. They’re almost all the way down the terminal, but in front of her is one of those gender neutral bathrooms. Single stall. No one else there. She could cry. Instead, she goes in, and locks the door behind her.

 

The walk back to their seats afterward doesn’t feel as long, and Sonny doesn’t mention what just happened because he’s a sweetheart like that, and knows when to back off. Alex will want to talk about it, probably on the plane when they have nowhere else to go for the next forever long and Noah occupies himself draining Nick’s cell phone battery on flash games he’s incredibly good at. 

When Olivia sits back down, she leans against Alex’s shoulder and takes her first deep breaths in a while. She definitely feels better, but her head still aches with residual anxiety over what she almost had to do. It’s an extreme reaction, yes, but she can’t help it and at least this is over now. Calmer, she’s able to relax and go back to the book she brought with her to read on the flight. For the past few months, she’s been trying to get into the fantasy novel, but hasn’t had the time.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is also @beelivia!


End file.
